National Weather Service stops translating forecasts to other languages, after federal job cuts

The National Weather Service is no longer providing translations of its forecasts and other weather warnings into languages other than English and has suspended use of artificial intelligence software used to aid in translations.

National Weather Service spokesman Michael Musher said in an email to Newsday that "Due to a contract lapse, NWS paused the automated language translation services for our products until further notice." The "lapse" comes after Trump administration job cuts that have left nearly half of all National Weather Service forecast offices with 20% vacancy rates.

Newsday reported in 2023 that the service’s New York forecast office was one of 14 across the country using AI-guided translations to reach non-English speakers through a five-year, $5.5 million contract for translation services through the San Francisco-based AI company Lilt.

Musher and the weather service did not answer questions this week about the change. 

But in 2023, Ken Graham, the National Weather Service director, had been quoted in a weather service news release saying the project would "improve community and individual readiness and resilience as climate change drives more extreme weather events," helping the service reach populations with limited English proficiency. Lilt did not respond to a request for comment.

Nelson Vaz, warning coordination meteorologist for the Weather Service’s New York office had told Newsday in 2023 that the Lilt software would be an important tool in the New York City metro area, where residents speak about 800 languages. Vaz did not respond to a request for comment.

In New York City, 11 people drowned in 2021 in basement apartments after flash flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, prompting calls for faster warnings in advance of extreme weather. Large Chinese-speaking communities in Queens and Manhattan were one reason the New York forecast office was chosen as the only one in the country to offer simplified Chinese translations.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens), who supported funding for the service’s AI contract with Lilt and whose constituents were among those killed in the Queens flooding, said in a statement Monday she was "calling on the Trump administration to reverse course on funding cuts to this program and any others under NOAA and the NWS to ensure the safety of diverse communities, like Queens, and so many others that welcome tourists, students, and those whose primary language may not be English." She said the service’s use of AI translation tools had "dramatically decreased the time it takes to send out multilingual warnings and forecasts."

Louis Uccellini, the weather service director from 2013 through 2022 who is now a visiting research professor at the University of Maryland, said that he was not familiar with the details of the service’s suspension of automated translation, but was troubled about a backdrop of cuts to scientific research he said was important to the service’s work.

"I am concerned about the cutbacks in Earth system sciences that are important to continually advancing observation systems, forecasts and warnings," he said. Recent staffing reductions in the service could also impair its mission, he said. "These new hires who were brought into the weather system over the last one to two years who were let go or set aside. ... They were top-notch."

In Suffolk County, roughly 98,000 residents speak Spanish at home but have limited English proficiency, according to the census; roughly 5,500 people speak Mandarin or Cantonese, the main Chinese dialects, with limited English proficiency. In Nassau County, the numbers are roughly 168,000 and 20,000, respectively.

Minerva Perez, executive director of Ola of Eastern Long Island, a Latino-focused advocacy organization, said in an interview that ending Spanish-language forecasts and warnings would not deny information to Spanish-speaking Long Islanders, who can still get information from Spanish-language news sources in the area. But, she said, it could lead to communication delays, saying: "Any delay is not good, especially anything that inhibits safety plans and execution." 

"It’s shortsighted," she added. "It’s shooting government agencies in the foot," potentially harming immigrants and American citizens whose English may be imperfect, she said.

Early this week, the weather service’s translation page ran a banner notice warning that "the translated text product functionality on this site may be interrupted after 3/31/2025. Further details will be provided when available." The page displayed weather information in Spanish, Chinese and three other languages, but the latest posts were from April 1.

With AP